I was kind of surprised to read a post on the Friendly Atheist blog that went after Richard Dawkins for a tweet in which he called for a feminist revolution inside of Islam.

Reading attacks on Dawkins is nothing new. Even on a fairly Dawkins-friendly site like Friendly Atheist, if he says something hurtful or wrong, it will be discussed. But this post shocked me, not only because of the implied sexism from the author, but also because of the tweet in question.

The post’s author, Lauren Nelson, takes issue with this:

Islam needs a feminist revolution. It will be hard. What can we do to help?

For starters, Dawkins is a wealthy white Western male dictating what just under a billion women — and overwhelmingly, women of color — around the world “need” to do, with little to no context for what their lives are like.

So Dawkins cannot have an opinion on what he sees happening to women inside Islam because he is a white Western male? Apparently he cannot have an opinion on the subject because he is not a Muslim woman like Nelson is. Oh wait, Nelson isn’t Muslim. How dare she have an opinion on Muslim women!

Did I do that right?

And what does his skin color have to do with this, anyway? Last time I checked, Muslims come in all different races, much like most other religions. Sure, the Muslims Dawkins is talking about are probably overwhelmingly Middle Eastern, but why does that change the message of his tweet? He wants to help women living under an oppressive religion, and Nelson is complaining that he is white. Bravo...

This post by Nelson was more sexist, arrogant and misguided than a single letter in Dawkins’s tweet, which did nothing but claim that he believed Islam needed a feminist revolution, and that, while it would be very hard, he would like to know how he can help.

How dare he offer to help women who are often stoned to death for adultery, even when they are the victims of rape, who are subject to female genital mutilation, or who are killed by their families in honor killings. How dare this privileged white male use his position of fame to make noise and call attention to these atrocities.

No, Nelson believes that since not all Muslim women experience these acts, Dawkins is out of place.

Well, I am sorry, but Dawkins in one tweet has now done more for Islamic feminists than Nelson has done by spending her time focusing on the messenger and missing the message (emphasis added)

The city and the Lower Haight: Stuck with the Wiggle

I do a bike policy podcast in LA, and we'd like to get some people in the Wigg Party and others to explain what's going on with SFPD cyclist-ticketing campaign, and the "wiggle." Can someone please contact me at livebiketalk@gmail.com?

thanks,

Nick Richert

My response:

Nick:

Not clear why I got this email, since I'm a long-time critic of the city's bike people. As I pointed out the other day on my blog, the city is trying to have it both ways on the Wiggle, which it promotes as a quick, fast way for cyclists to get to Market Street and South of Market. The problem: It's a densely-populated neighborhood, and cyclists are now speeding through it putting pedestrians in peril. Lot of people in that neighborhood are complaining, which in turn leads the SFPD to issue tickets, etc. Hence, City Hall has a problem: It can't ignore the issue because of the neighborhood complaints. On the other hand, City Hall has been pandering to the bike lobby for years, essentially giving it whatever it asks for.

More comment by me:

The problem the city has now: It's hard to backtrack on promoting the Wiggle, now that it's been advertised for years as a quick and cool way for cyclists to get to Market Street/downtown. Just like it's hard for City Hall to admit that riding a bike in the city is a lot more dangerous than it and the Bicycle Coalition have been telling us, which is why it has to ignore that UC study. City Hall has been aggressively promoting cycling in the city for more than ten years, which is now hard to reverse---or even modify---even as the dumb Masonic Avenue bike project looms on the horizon as a public relations debacle for the PC bobbleheads in City Hall.